Must have gone to bed merry (as who could fail),
On their foaming “half-gallons of competent ale!”
Thus matters sped with this thriving community for several hundred years; and even at the Reformation, when other and similar institutions foundered in the gale, St. John’s Hospital appears to have weathered the storm. It might, indeed, have retained until now its original position, had not England got entangled in that horrid Civil War. Then it was that, with characteristic loyalty, the men of old Chester declared for the king—then it was that the suburbs of the city became a ruinous heap—and that this venerable Hospital was razed to the ground, lest it should serve as a cover for the artillery of the enemy. But the city, which had so bravely withstood one foe, had, like the Kars of our own day, to succumb before another; for famine at length achieved what the deadly cannon had failed to accomplish! The tale of the Siege has already been told; suffice it then to say, that order and the monarchy being once more restored, the site of the Hospital, and the lands belonging to it, were granted by Charles II. to Colonel Whitley, and at his death to the Mayor and Corporation of Chester, as permanent custodians of the charity. How the Corporation abused their trust, and mismanaged the Hospital; how they sold its estates, and squandered the proceeds; and how, after all, “like leeches satiate with evil blood,” they had to disgorge their plunder, is, we can assure you, a very pretty story, which we might tell, if we chose, but we are mercifully inclined.
A Blue-Coat Hospital was established in Chester in 1700, under the auspices of Bishop Stratford; and, seventeen years afterwards, the liberality of the citizens erected in its service a “local habitation,” on part of the site originally occupied by the Hospital of St. John. But bricks and mortar, like everything else, will not last for ever; so the old premises having gone to decay, benevolence has again put its shoulder to the wheel, and, in 1854, restored the fabric in the handsome manner we now behold it. That graceful little statue over the doorway—a portrait of one of the “Blue Boys”—is a study from the life by Richardson, of London. There are thirty-one scholars on the foundation, all clothed, fed, boarded, and educated at the cost of the charity; besides which, there is a probationary or “Green Cap” School, from which those who have “attained the purple” are usually selected.
As for the “thirteen brethren, poore and feeble,” of the original foundation, their number, which, from causes already hinted at, had dwindled down to six, has recently been restored,—their cottages at the rear of the Blue School rebuilt, and fitted with every convenience,—while each brother and sister now receives an allowance of ten shillings per week. Thus, thanks to Lord Brougham and his charity commissioners, thirteen poor souls—
From chilling want and guilty murmurs free,
here rest their aged limbs; and as they, in turn, go down peacefully to the grave, others will step into their shoes, to the perpetual honour of the Hospital of St. John, and of its Norman founder, the good Earl Randal.
The steep lane running westward from the Hospital is Canal Street, leading down to the canal, and the “banks of the Dee.” You don’t care about going down there, just now? Very well, then, we’ll refrain; but, uninviting as it seems at first sight, a ramble upon the Navigation Cop, at the first flow of the tide, is an enjoyable sort of treat, as you’ll find if you have time to avail yourself of it.
Nearly opposite to the Blue School is George Street, anciently called Gorse Stacks, a wider and more commodious street than the last, leading away to the Cattle Market and Railway Station, as also to the populous and increasing suburb of New Town. We can remember this locality when it was little else but green pasture—the Lion’s Field we believe it was called—but how changed is it now! its verdure has fled,—it is country no longer; for the once open fields now swarm with innumerable homes of men! Near the bottom of St. Ann Street, the oldest and still principal street of this suburb, stands Christ Church, a neat little cruciform structure, with diminutive spire, and small lancet-shaped windows, erected in 1838, to meet the spiritual wants of this growing neighbourhood. The Church has sitting accommodation for about 600 worshippers.
Proceeding along Upper Northgate Street, we soon reach Egerton House, formerly a seat of the Cheshire family of that name; but recently converted into a first-class ladies’ school, under the efficient management of the Misses Williams. Stay here an instant, for we are just over the Tunnel of the Chester and Holyhead Railway, which science, art, and convenience have combined to make the great highway between England and Ireland.
A little farther on, and our street branches off in two almost parallel directions,—the way upon our right being the old coach road to Birkenhead and Liverpool, and that upon our left—but stay! we are travelling a “leetle” too fast, for we haven’t quite done with our present locale. Before us stands a lofty house, crowned with a lanthorn-shaped observatory, and at present the residence of Mr. Fletcher. It occupies the site of an older house, called at different periods Green Hall and Jolly’s Hall, destroyed before the Siege of Chester, for the same reasons which dictated the fall of other portions of the suburbs. This house, again, had usurped the place of an older tenant of the soil; for here was situate the Chapel and Cemetery of St. Thomas à Becket, founded, no doubt, soon after that prelate’s murder and canonisation in 1170. This Chapel gave name to the manorial court in connection with the Abbey, to which jurisdiction the tenants of the Cathedral are even now subject. Until lately, the bailiff of the Dean and Chapter held his annual court for this manor in the Refectory (now the King’s School), impanelling his jury from among the Cathedral tenants, who, by that “suit and service,” acknowledged the prerogative of this ancient court. Now let us pass on along the roadway to our left.